


Brightly Shining

by claudine



Category: Original Work
Genre: 16th Century CE, All Ahoy to Tropestown, Ancient China, Fake Ming Dynasty, Footnote abuse, Friends With Benefits, Historical, M/M, Pining, Royalty, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:34:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24490615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudine/pseuds/claudine
Summary: “You’ve been busy while I was gone,” Yan Linsi, courtesy name Junlu, said, his voice even. The Fifth Royal Prince, His Highness Zhu Xi startled as the sliding door of the private room slammed open, his hand still on the collar of the singing boy beside him.Disfavoured Fifth Prince X General of the Northern Garrison!!! Happy Ending!
Relationships: Dissolute Ming Dynasty Prince/Famous General, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 19
Kudos: 65
Collections: Original Characters & Original Works Flash Exchange May 2020





	Brightly Shining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/gifts).



> This kinda grew out of control. Enjoy!! :D

“You’ve been busy while I was gone,” Yan Linsi, courtesy name Junlu, said, his voice even. The Fifth Royal Prince, His Highness Zhu Xi startled as the sliding door of the private room slammed open, his hand still on the collar of the singing boy beside him.

“Great General Yan!” Zhu Xi’s hand darted back guiltily into its wide sleeve. “You’re back early… I was just… listening to Yun-er’s newest song.”

Said Yun-er was almost sitting on Zhu Xi’s lap, his cheeks pink, his collar partly undone. A pretty-enough morsel, with small lips like a tender plum flower bud, and wet, overwrought eyes. “Sir,” he greeted in a soft voice, bowing from where he sat.

Ignoring him, Yan Linsi hauled Zhu Xi up like a sack of grain, causing him to stumble forward with a shout.

“Junlu! I didn’t touch him…” Zhu Xi said, his words choked as Yan Linsi took his lips in a biting kiss. Zhu Xi struggled for a moment before his eyelids slowly slid shut, allowing himself to be kissed. His hands moved, slipping up Yan Linsi’s back to hold him. 

He seemed to have forgotten that the singing boy he’d hired for the evening was still in the room, quietly sitting on the bench-bed.

As Yan Linsi’s sudden bout of temper cooled, his mouth turned softer, lingering. The Great General of the Northern Garrison, losing his head over a paramour, just like any other man. He could command armies with ease, navigate the waters of the treacherous court carefully, but His Highness The Fifth Prince had the special ability to irritate him completely.

With a final kiss, he pulled away from Zhu Xi, looking at him. Zhu Xi’s dark eyes were shining, as bright as his name[1]. His lips were damp, a little swollen from their kissing, and his tongue darted out for a moment to lick at them. Little vixen, he thought.

“Leave,” Yan Linsi said, throwing the singing boy a small pouch of silver. The boy caught it with a nimble hand and scuttled away in a slither of fabric, thanking him as he shut the sliding door, as if relieved that someone had finally remembered he was still in the room. 

Yan Linsi shifted, pulling Zhu Xi’s weight on top of him. He’d missed this, far away on the northern frontier, with no one to warm his bed. Sullenly, he thought of how His Highness loved listening to poetry and song in brothels, visiting private establishments to sleep around, living up to the reputation he’d carefully cultivated. They’d had an agreement, but it galled him that the Fifth Prince could not be completely his.

Though, he’d thought of Zhu Xi as his since they were youths, when he’d left Zhu Xi behind in the capital the summer he turned sixteen. Sent to the North, so young and terribly green.

“Junlu, did you miss me?” Zhu Xi asked, his voice leaving hooks in Yan Linsi’s heart. Smiling playfully, he undid the first button of Yan Linsi’s outer robe, then rubbed his bottom on his groin. “Oh, you _do_ miss me.”

“Little vixen…” Yan Linsi said, feeling himself grow stiffer. It had been months since he’d heard Zhu Xi’s voice. In those long, cold nights, he’d try to recall its cadence as he brought himself relief. Hearing his voice here in the stillness of the bedchamber, it was like looking at a dusty bronze mirror wiped clean, like sediment finally settling in a clear brook.

Zhu Xi removed Yan Linsi’s ornate outer robe carefully, tutting all the while. Yan Linsi had gone to pay his respects to the Emperor as soon as he reached the capital, dressed in formal court attire. And then he’d looked for Zhu Xi, annoyed that he had not been in the palace to receive him after months of being parted, only to find him in a discreet brothel, the kind that wasn’t operated by the government. 

“Of course I missed you,” Yan Linsi said, his voice quiet, his hands reaching up to catch Zhu Xi’s wrist. “It takes so long for your letters to arrive.”

“Junlu…” Zhu Xi said his name, bending down to kiss him on his temple. Then moved to his lips, opening them softly, sweetly over his. His little comfort was that they shared genuine affection—that Zhu Xi wouldn’t do this for his bevy of paid companions. Camaraderie in political treachery had made them discreet allies, then bedmates.

Their breaths mingled, lips slipping from each other as they kissed, tongues playfully flirting in a languid dance. Zhu Xi slipped the hairpin from Yan Linsi’s hair, letting it fall unbound in waves all over the pillow. For some reason Yan Linsi did not understand, he always did this, like seeing him with his hair loosened brought him a certain kind of satisfaction. But he was neither a woman nor a dandy, and he paid no special attention to his hair.

Then Zhu Xi brushed across him and he gasped, the little bit of friction making him grip the bed covers.

“You’re already so hard,” Zhu Xi whispered into his ear. “Am I that alluring?” Laughingly, he stroked him over his under-robe with practised fingers, as if he weren’t a prince but a harlot. Yan Linsi groaned. Zhu Xi was a clever and attentive lover, taking what he wanted and giving back equally. It was always difficult for him to maintain his control when they were in bed, when every touch reminded him of the overwhelming, pitiful emotion he felt for him.

“Don’t tease…” Yan Linsi said, his heart clenching. Then he flipped them, pushing Zhu Xi down, who was still fully dressed, only his slightly flushed cheeks any indicator that they were engaging in bedroom games. He wanted to make Zhu Xi squirm. Make him feel a fraction of the turbulent emotions he felt. 

With quick, brusque movements, Yan Linsi rucked up Zhu Xi’s robes, not even bothering to remove them as he made his way through fastenings and layers to get his mouth on Zhu Xi’s cock.

“Ah—ahhh. Jun… Junlu.” Zhu Xi gasped, finally losing his flirtatious calm. 

Yan Linsi had only Zhu Xi for experience, making up for it with passion and persistence. He stroked Zhu Xi’s thigh with his large, walm palm as he sucked, feeling it start to tremble beneath his hand. The affection he’d nurtured in his youth had grown into a beast, far too difficult to control, but it purred happily at the evidence of Zhu Xi coming undone by his hand.

“I love... your mouth,” Zhu Xi said, his hand reaching down to pat at Yan Linsi’s crown, tucking stray strands of hair behind his ear, shuddering as Yan Linsi changed it up to lingering licks around the head. “But perhaps… you should stop before I come in it.”

Pulling off, Yan Linsi wiped his hand across his sticky mouth, swinging his head back to clear the curtain of hair in his face. “Mm.” 

Then he reached for the table of ointment beside the bed, pouring it over his fingers as Zhu Xi waited. 

As soon as Zhu Xi realized Yan Linsi’s intention, he swallowed visibly. 

“Junlu…” He didn’t say anything else, opening his mouth and closing it again like a fish out of water, his eyes glued to where Yan Linsi was slicking up his hole. “I…”

They’d always done it with Yan Linsi on top. Zhu Xi had joked that he was lazy, and that Yan Linsi was older anyway. Yan Linsi was the one who made sure that Zhu Xi was prepared to take him, the one who cleaned them up, that Zhu Xi had a drink to refresh him after they’d lain together.

“Your lowly subject prepares himself for His Highness,” Yan Linsi said, his face serious. Zhu Xi burst out laughing, then choked as Yan Linsi gradually lowered himself onto him. This was the first time he’d been shocked speechless when they were in bed. “How does it feel?”

“Like I’m going to die,” Zhu Xi replied.

“Is it alright, should I move, or—” Yan Linsi asked bluntly. This was his first time taking Zhu Xi into himself. It felt strange at first. Full. Like he was closer to Zhu Xi than he’d been before. A favoured courtier of old[2], a lover, an intimate friend who knew him[3], whom he could trust with his heart. All those things he could be.

“You’re so hot and tight inside,” Zhu Xi said, his voice strangled. His hands were fisted in the coverlet, fingers opening and closing as Yan Linsi adjusted to the feeling of having Zhu Xi inside of him. “Are _you_ alright?”

“You’re… smaller than I am,” Yan Linsi said, smiling faintly as Zhu Xi squawked in outrage. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Yan Junlu! How dare you,” Zhu Xi grouched. “Insulting a member of royalty like this…” He stopped speaking as soon as Yan Linsi began to move—slowly but surely, concentrating on Zhu Xi’s face, the laboured expression and high flush on his cheeks giving him confidence. A small moan escaped from Zhu Xi’s throat, and Yan Linsi sank in the pleasure of their intimacy, his own body heating up as it started to respond. So this was what it felt like.

But Yan Linsi had the added stimulation of having feelings for Zhu Xi, his heart stuffed overly full with sentiment. He sat with Zhu Xi sheathed inside him, starting to stroke himself, his eyes hungrily taking in every of Zhu Xi’s reactions. The flutter of his eyelashes, the little beads of sweat dotting his forehead. That irreverent mouth making sharp sounds of pleasure, the sound of one socked foot kicking uselessly on the bed.

“Zhu Xi,” Yan Linsi called his name, bare of any rank or ornamentation. As if they were truly equals and not the Fifth Prince and a subject of the court, whose ultimate loyalty had to be to the Emperor alone. Only here in the bedchamber, hidden away in a private establishment, could he call his name out loud like this. He couldn’t muddy the waters of their relationship with an ardent confession, but perhaps, just being able to call his name when they were together was enough.

“Junlu, I’m coming.” Zhu Xi bucked up, grinding in at an angle that made him gasp. Yan Linsi continued to touch himself before he came in his hand, thick white dripping down his fingers. For a moment, only the sounds of heavy breathing could be heard in the room.

Then, disengaging his body from Zhu Xi’s, Yan Linsi crawled forward to lie beside him. He wiped his hand on a corner of the coverlet and turned Zhu Xi to his side. Settling down, he did nothing but look at Zhu Xi’s face, feeling the calmness and satisfaction that came after sleeping with Zhu Xi sit in his bones.

“What are you looking at.”

“You.”

Zhu Xi looked like he wanted to say something, but waited. Yan Linsi however, was used to silence. He took his time, soaking in Zhu Xi’s fine features. He was a good-looking man, and he thought that it was no chore for anyone to take Zhu Xi as a customer. But if it were just for his looks, Yan Linsi would have had no problem taking him as a mere bed partner.

“Did you ever… read the poems I sent with my letters?” Zhu Xi hedged.

Yan Linsi’s brow creased. He had, but they had been flowery and oblique. Still, he stored them carefully with his important items, where no damp could get to them.

“You!” Zhu Xi shoved him. “Oblique? I thought you’d appreciate the sentiment, but clearly I’m playing the _qin_ to a cow[4]!” He sighed. “Never mind… perhaps I have to write more literally. Oh this is just hurting my heart…” 

Yan Linsi didn’t understand, but it was a question for tomorrow. Not bothering to clean up for once, he undid Zhu Xi’s hair and bade him sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> [1]熙 [xī], [bright](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%86%99/4793590) [return]
> 
> [2]There are multiple records in earlier dynasties of male courtiers sleeping with the Emperor, gaining much political power. As dynasties moved and political structures changed, this practice faded and the popular mode of male love became prostitution instead.  
> Source: Hinsch, B. (1990). _Passions of the cut sleeve._ [return]
> 
> [3]知己 [zhī jǐ]. Literally “knowing oneself”. In various contexts, an intimate friend, or a kindred soul. [return]
> 
> [4]对牛弹琴 [duì niú tán qín]. Literally “playing the zither to a cow”, to mean offering a treat to an unappreciative audience. [story](https://tinyurl.com/y87k3o8q) [return]
> 
>   
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/anonflail)


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